


Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough

by Pitkin



Series: Words Of Every Song [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitkin/pseuds/Pitkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew slept on the couch that night, as if he was silently giving her one more chance to come to him in the night, to prove herself, to convince him that she was trying and she could return to the old Melinda.</p><p>In the morning, he packed two bags, told Melinda he loved her, that he would let her know where he was staying in case she wanted to reach him and she watched him walk out the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough

When Melinda woke up again it was to the sterile smell of hospital cleaner, bright fluorescent ceiling lights and the dull din of a number of machines set up to monitor her condition. She must have stirred as she had started coming to because a shadow fell over her as her cracked eyes tried to adjust to the blur.

“Easy, Mel, easy,” It was Audrey Coulson. Melinda heard the arm of the bed as it was adjusted down and then felt the bed shift slightly as Audrey sat on the edge of it and place a hand gently on Melinda’s right arm. “Try not to move too much,” Audrey said.

Melinda blinked a few times and squinted against the bright light as her vision slowly came into focus. As her thoughts came to her, she tried to take stock. She was alive. She could move fingers and toes. Her left arm was in a sling. The back of her bed was propped so she was mostly sitting up. Audrey fluffed at her pillows and very gently brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears. “W-what…” Melinda croaked the word out and then cleared her throat.

“You gave us all quite a little scare,” Audrey said. There was a small reassuring smile on her face but anxiety hung in her eyes and the creases of her brow. She stood up from the bed and went to fill a cup on the table next to the bed with ice water. She returned to the bed and sat on the edge carefully once more. “Do you remember anything?” Audrey asked as she pushed a button to slowly raise the back of the bed a little more so she could help her take a few small sips of the water.

Melinda grimaced at the dryness in her throat and took a few larger drinks of the water with Audrey’s help. She took a deep breath and flinched at the pain it caused in her collarbone and shoulder area.

Audrey cringed in sympathy. “The bullet hit your vest and splintered. You have a fractured clavicle. They brought you into surgery to pull the fragments out. They said there didn’t appear to be any significant nerve damage and expect you to make a full recovery.” She explained.

“How long’ve I been out?” Melinda asked. Her voice was a rough rasp, as the memories of what happened slowly began to flood back into her mind.

“Almost three days…” Audrey answered reluctantly.

Melinda’s eyes opened up wider. “Andrew?” She asked.

“I made Phil take him home for a shower and change of clothes,” Audrey confessed. She looked over at the clock on the wall. “They should be back soon,” she promised.

“Phil?” Melinda asked next. He had to be okay if Audrey was ordering him (and Andrew) around.

“Has a few stitches and thinks he’s a badass at wielding a steel bedpan,” Audrey offered up a small smirk and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. 

“What was he doing here…?” Melinda asked with a frown.

“Bobbi chased a stray cat down the driveway and fell,” Audrey explained. Melinda’s eyebrows arched and concern stretched over her face. “She’s okay. She needed four stitches in her knee. It was a busy night. Phil was going to get me a coffee when everything happened,” she said.

Melinda exhaled the small breath she had been holding and nodded slightly. She hesitated and swallowed against the dry lump in her throat. “The woman…did…” she cleared her throat. “Did she make it?”

Audrey pressed her lips tight together for a brief moment. “I’m sorry, Mel,” she gave Melinda a solemn shake of her head, “They did what they could but…she didn’t make it,” Audrey gave Melinda’s good arm a firm but gentle squeeze.

Melinda closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. She could not let her emotions free right now. There were still questions to ask. She exhaled a long, slow breath and opened her eyes again. “Nash?” She asked of her partner.

Audrey felt reluctant to answer.

“He’s alive,” Phil made it through the door without Andrew. When Melinda looked his way, he added, “Severed vertebrae in his neck from the stab wound. Paralyzed from the neck down,” he stepped over next to Audrey. “Andrew stopped to talk to the doc,” He said. “He’ll be in here in a second,” He told her.

Melinda felt the burn in her eyes. She nodded. “Thank you,” she said with a small nod.

When Andrew arrived, Phil and Audrey said goodbye so they could give the couple time to themselves. It was only when Melinda was in the room alone with Andrew, carefully tucked in his arms, that she allowed herself the moment to breakdown and let her emotions free, crying into his shoulder for her partner, for Jiaying, for the situation as it played out and her failure to keep it under control.

\--

_ I don’t want to lose you _

_ But I don’t want to use you _

_ Just to have somebody by my side _

_ \-- _

It had been such a nice night out. It had been two and a half months since Melinda had been released from the hospital. Two weeks after the accident, she had gone back to work, relegated strictly to desk duty. Seven weeks after she was released from the hospital, a follow-up evaluation from the doctor left her finally free of the sling that had been supporting the weight of her arm while her clavicle healed and she began physical therapy appointments. She was still on desk duty, which she would be on until her shrink signed off on her mental status. Her appointments with the psychologist had been more trying that the physical therapy and desk duty combined.

But their night out...their night out had been her first night out with Andrew, attempting to have a normal date night out for dinner. Melinda knew she had been fairly closed off with Andrew after she had been released from the hospital. There was a lot going on in her mind at the moment. It was hard to sort out. Andrew had started out patient for the first month. After that he had slowly grown more and more impatient at Melinda’s unwillingness to talk to him about, well any of it.

Their dinner out had been almost blissful. The accident hadn’t been brought up. Andrew hadn’t even talked about anything work related for either of them. By the time they had arrived home, Melinda had <i>almost</i> felt a bit normal. She had been slightly buzzed from a couple of glasses of wine at dinner and she had managed to disassociate just enough from the heavy things on her mind that she had been eager to take Andrew to bed once they had returned home.

Before the accident, they had been taking the first steps into planning the start to their family. The accident had brought a full stop to even discussing this option. Melinda wasn’t going to quit her job or transfer out of active duty. She was working so damned hard on getting back into active duty, in fact, and it would still be years before she could expect to be able to seek a promotion to detective. If she were to turn up pregnant, she would be shifted, once again, to desk duty for the foreseeable future and it was likely she would never return to active duty. That was her fear, at least. It was a tangible fear, especially after the accident and it was also one she wasn’t quite ready to talk to Andrew about.

Their night had been serene. Melinda should have known the reprieve would never last. When she awoke on Sunday morning, Andrew was already out of bed and she could smell the telltale bacon and pancake scent of breakfast in the air. They had been halfway through breakfast when Andrew had chosen to strike. He was pretending to pay attention to the crossword puzzle he was halfheartedly scribbling words into, when he had started a tentative conversation about their future. Melinda had clammed up. She genuinely didn’t know why the topic made her clam up. Maybe it was guilt after she had failed to save Jiaying. Maybe it was fear because she had already seen what had happened to Nash and the fallout it caused his wife and young kids. Maybe she didn’t want her sergeant showing up on the doorstep someday and telling Andrew and their future potential children that she had been killed in the line of duty.

Whatever it was, Melinda had clammed up. She gave noncommittal hums in response to Andrew’s attempts to get her to talk and sometimes tried to change the topic. When she thought she had no other verbal out, she had excused herself from the table to go get a shower and Andrew stopped her retreat by reaching for and grabbing her arm, just above her wrist.

“Melinda, I  _ know _ this isn’t easy for you and that you’re still healing and working through it,” Andrew said, looking up at her. There was concern in his face as he frowned. “Why won’t you  _ talk to me _ ?” he asked.

“I’ve already got a shrink, I don’t need another one,” Melinda snapped. She tore her arm free and beat a hasty retreat from the room, back to their bedroom and eventually made it into the shower. She stayed in the spray of hot water longer than she should have. Afterward, she studied the off colored scar along her collarbone in the mirror of the bathroom once she had wiped the glass off. Why couldn’t she talk to Andrew? She had never had this problem with him before. Her reluctance to talk about work-related instances had never caused a short temper in Andrew before. Then again, the worst Melinda had sustained before now had been minor scrapes and bruises. She had never come out of a firefight with bullet wounds of her own before this.

She returned to their room in her robe and found Andrew sitting on the bed waiting for her. Melinda paused in her walk to the bureau. She hesitated, an apology on the tip of her tongue but she swallowed it, dropped her eyes and continued to the dresser. She pulled on a pair of jeans and tossed her robe to the hamper before she pulled a bra, old t-shirt and a thin oversized sweatshirt on before she grabbed her brush to begin pulling it through her hair, grimacing whenever she used her still healing left arm.

“I’m sorry for being short with you,” Andrew spoke first. She could hear the hesitance in his voice.

Melinda paused and frowned into the mirror on the dresser. She considered issuing her apology again but those words never quite came. “It’s over. Let’s just let it go,” She pulled the brush through her hair and then pulled it up into a tight ponytail. She went to her closet to find her sneakers.

“Melinda…I’m really trying here,” Andrew stood up and walked towards her. “Please stop shutting me out-,”

Melinda sidestepped his grasp with her sneakers in her hands. “I’m going for a walk,” She didn’t wait for a reply as she disappeared from the room and headed for the foyer as Andrew called after her. She grabbed her jacket from the closet and didn’t stop to put her shoes on until she was on the stairs of the porch. She was down the end of the block and around the corner before Andrew ever made it to the door and stepped out onto the porch with a heavy frown.

\--

_ I don’t want to hate you _

_ I don’t want to take you _

_ But I don’t want to be the one to cry _

_ And that don’t really matter to anyone anymore _

_ But like a Fool I keep losing my place _

_ And I keep seeing you walk through that door _

\--

“I can’t live like this, Mel!” Andrew shouted.

Melinda remained seated in her spot, unflinching as Andrew’s slapped a frustrated hand down on the kitchen table between them. She stared blindly at the spot on the table that his hand had landed, emotionless and void – controlled. “I don’t know what you expect me to tell you, Andrew,” She used his full name.

“That’s just it!” Andrew growled, livid at her lack of emotion. “You won’t tell me  _ anything _ ! How do you feel? Does your shoulder still hurt? Is your range of motion okay? Have you had another nightmare? Where’s your head at? What do you want from our future together? Do you still love me? Do you  _ care _ that I have to ask that? I’m trying to fight for you –  _ for us _ , Melinda! What do I need to do to make you understand that I miss you, that I love you and I want us to find a way back to who we were? Tell me what to do –  _ tell me anything _ .”

Melinda watched her husband as his emotions unraveled him across from her at the small table. In under the span of a year, their relationship had become unraveled. She had no answers for him. There was nothing to be done to turn Melinda into the person she used to be. There was only the person she was now and, honestly, Melinda wasn’t even sure who that person was and what they wanted out of the future. What did she want? She wanted Andrew to stop hurting for her. She wanted to absolve him from the burden of having to live under the shadow of the cutoff person she had become.

“There’s nothing you can do, Andrew,” Melinda spoke quietly in order to keep her tone steady and void of the emotion that was pulling against the thumping muscle in her chest.

“I don’t believe that…” Andrew shook his head. He stood up from the table, dropped his hands to his belted waist and paced back and forth.

“I can’t change what happened-,”

“I’m not asking you to!” Andrew snapped, cutting Melinda off.

After a few moments of carefully collecting her emotions, barely holding back from letting her eyes burn with tears that collected in them, Melinda lifted her gaze to Andrew’s. Her stoic, calmness seemed to only further flare his anger and desperation. “There’s no going back to ‘who we were,’” She said.

“Don’t say that!” Andrew shook his head and stopped his pacing. “Of course there is! Don’t be absurd!”

Melinda could see the way Andrew’s own face registered his own irrational comments. He knew better than to suggest that some changes were irreversible from his own studies. “Andrew…” She moved to stand but stopped in her spot when he rounded on her.

“Melinda, do you love me?” He cut her off and locked her gaze, staring into her as if he could somehow influence her answer with the pain in his own eyes.

“Yes,” Melinda breathed her answered. She couldn’t claim that she didn’t understand how he could think she didn’t love him. She shied away from his touch often. She escaped inwardly to keep her emotions from overwhelming her and sending her over the edge. She stubbornly refused to breakdown ever again after that first time she had when Andrew had walked into her hospital room.

“Then tell me why I should stay…” Andrew pled.

She stared at him, wishing she could break the old Melinda free from the cage she had locked her in down in the darkest depths of her soul with the rest of her inner turmoil. She shed one single tear and felt the anger boil within her at the lack of control she had over it. “I can’t,” She finally said, it was the only time her voice wavered.

Andrew slept on the couch that night, as if he was silently giving her one more chance to come to him in the night, to prove herself, to convince him that she was trying and she could return to the old Melinda.

In the morning, he packed two bags, told Melinda he loved her, that he would let her know where he was staying in case she wanted to reach him and she watched him walk out the door.

\--

_ But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much _

_ And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust _

_ There’s a reason why people don’t stay where they are _

_ Baby sometimes love, just ain’t enough _

\--

“Have you tried to talk to him?” Phil asked as he sat with Melinda on the front steps of her porch in the warmth of a late fall heatwave.

“He’s the one who left, Phil,” Melinda replied, her face a stoic solemn expression absent of emotion. Phil knew better. He knew Melinda still wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure she ever would be again. It hurt to watch her go through the motions of existence as if she didn’t feel well, much of  _ anything _ .

“I know,” Phil nodded. He looked down at the beer in his hand resting against his thigh and absently picked at the label. “It’s been a while, you’ve both had time to-,”

“A year ago I let a woman die, I let my partner become a drooling vegetable and my best friend got stabbed when he foolishly intervened – all of it because I hesitated instead of acting. Eight months ago, fully healed I returned to active duty. Two months ago, Andrew left,” Melinda looked over at him. “Time doesn’t matter, Phil,” she said. “It’s over. He’s not coming back…and I’m not going to chase him down.” How could she? She was the one that was damaged. She was the one that didn’t want a family anymore. She was the one that didn’t want to discuss and dissect her every single emotion on what had happened until it was all wrapped up with a neat little bow. She wanted to put it behind her. She wanted to readjust her priorities and continue moving forward. She couldn’t remain stagnant…no matter how much it hurt that Andrew was gone.

Phil was silent for a long moment as Melinda took a long pull from her bottle of beer. He watched his lap and nodded his head slowly. He wasn’t sure if he should speak and risk angering his friend or not, given all the things she had been through.

After a few more moments of watching him try and decide, Melinda rolled her eyes and sighed. “Phil, just say whatever it is,” she said.

Phil shrugged his shoulders up just a bit. “It’s just…” He frowned thoughtfully and looked over at Melinda. They had been friends since they were little kids. She knew things about him that Audrey probably still didn’t know. Well, at least if Mel hadn’t slipped any of the knowledge to his wife already. Not the point. “I’ve never seen you give up on something before…” He confessed with some hesitance in his voice.

Melinda turned her eyes forward toward the street and away from her childhood friend, her lifelong confidant. “He deserves to be able to move on with his life,” she said as she spotted Audrey and Bobbi walking down the Coulson driveway, Bobbi a few strides ahead of Audrey as she skipped and raced along with Audrey trying to keep up and warning Bobbi to stay only on the sidewalk.

“And you don’t?” Phil asked.

Melinda didn’t look at him. They both knew her honest opinion to that question. “What I want or deserve in this case doesn’t matter,” She answered. “I can’t go back and he can’t love who I’ve become. It’s not his fault.”

“You’re wrong if you think he doesn’t love you,” Phil said just as Bobbi turned from the sidewalk to the walkway that led to the steps of Melinda’s porch and started running toward them, giggling away. Phil put his beer bottle down next to him and leaned over with an exaggerated grunt to scoop Bobbi up by her under arms. “Did you walk here all by yourself?” He gasped as he pulled the little girl to sit sideways across his lap.

“Nooooo daddy!” Bobbi squealed as Phil leaned into the crook of her neck like he was going to give her a kiss but blew a loud raspberry instead, leaving Bobbi squealing with glee and trying to squirm free midway through saying that mommy had come with her as Audrey caught up and came strolling up the walkway with a small smile.

Melinda watched the scene before her with outward amusement and inward sadness. This would never be her family interaction. There was no future that included children now. She played her part, offered Audrey a drink with a small smile and fell into conversation with the family, now removed from the more serious conversation she and Phil had been having just moments earlier.

\--

_ Now I could never change you _

_ I don’t want to blame you _

_ Baby, you don’t have to take the fall _

_ Yes, I may have hurt you _

_ But I did not desert you _

_ Maybe I just want to have it all _

\--

“Why are you here?” Cal asked through the phone line that patched him through to the receiver Melinda held to her ear across the other side of the glass partition from him.

“How’s your first year in maximum security, Mr. Johnson?” Melinda asked, her piercing, stony gaze fixed on Cal.

Cal shifted on his stool in his light blue jumpsuit. His head had been shaved when he entered the new prison but was now grown out in a greasy, shaggy mane that hung toward his eyes, unkempt. He had lost a bit of weight and his eyes were sunken and dark. “Why…are you here?” He asked, trying to remain calm.

Melinda watched him carefully for a long moment. “I want to know where you buried her.”

Cal blinked and looked up from the small table in front of him, through the glass at Melinda. “What?”

“Your daughter,” Melinda said. “You killed her and you buried her. I want to know where she’s buried.”

Cal shook with anger that he tried to restrain since he knew the guards wouldn’t stand for an outburst. “My daughter…is not dead.” He exhaled a long breath.

“Then where is she?” Melinda asked.

“I don’t know!” Cal snapped. He twitched and settled on his stool before the guards stepped over to him. Shifting anxiously in his seat on the stool, he glared through the glass at Melinda. “I didn’t kill my daughter,” Cal insisted. Tears pricked at his eyes and Melinda wanted to reach through the glass and strangle the man. “I made mistakes,” Cal went on, almost rocking slightly on his stool as he began to ramble just slightly. Melinda could see the way his had disappeared behind his eyes, drifting off somewhere else as he went on. “I made terrible mistakes, I know that,” He said. “It was never supposed to be like this! We were supposed to be a family – we were supposed to be happy!” He cried out turning his face up and looking through the glass through his tears at Melinda. “I would never...I would never hurt Daisy! I would never hurt any-,”

“You stabbed my partner in the neck, slashed a seven inch slice into a doctor’s cheek, shot your wife, stabbed my best friend and shot me – and all of that was  _ after  _ you had beaten your wife,” Melinda cut him off. Cal blinked at her. “Don’t you  _ dare  _ try and tell me that you would never hurt anyone,” She glared at him in disgust.

“I love my daughter!” Cal shouted through the phone. “I could never hurt her! I  _ would _ never hurt her!”

“You  _ murdered _ her mother,” Melinda replied calmly.

Cal lunged toward the glass. Melinda didn’t flinch or move as the guards jumped into action to grab hold of Cal’s arms. “I love my daughter! I love my daughter!” Cal continued to shout as the guards slammed him into the desk and wrestled with his struggling to get his hands cuffed behind his back.

“Prove it!” Melinda shouted only to make sure she could be heard through the headset. “Tell me where she is,” She demanded.

The guards dragged Cal away as he continued insisting that he loved his daughter and wouldn’t hurt her.

\--

Melinda received two weeks’ paid suspension from her sergeant after Cal’s lawyer contacted him about her unauthorized visit turned interrogation.  

She spent the first week going through the entire house and packing everything still there that belonged to Andrew, moving the boxes to the garage and then cleaning every inch of the house until it was meticulously spotless. She spent the next three days trying to convince Andrew to come and claim his belongings. They had fought over the phone seven times. He only agreed, finally, after Melinda threatened to hire a moving company to move them if he didn’t come and get them himself. Now they were sitting across from each other stiffly in the kitchen, separated by the table of Chinese take out containers and the chasm of stagnate emotion. 

“Why would you put your career in that kind of jeopardy?” Andrew  looked across the table at her as if he were looking at a stranger and not his future ex-wife.

Melinda quietly poked around at the noodles in the container in her hand. She averted her eyes to its contents, not wanting to look at the disbelief and concern in Andrew’s features as his eyebrows jumped up his forehead and his nostrils flared while he waited for a reply. “It’s important.”

“I could see if maybe the baby was alive-,”

“She is,” Melinda’s head snapped to attention as she stared across the table at Andrew.

Andrew pursed his lips together and exhaled a sigh as if trying to muster up some patience with a testy child. Melinda regretted offering dinner, even takeout, in exchange for Andrew coming to collect his things with the yellow monstrosity of a rental truck that was parked in the driveway currently.

“You don’t know that, Mel,” Andrew spoke in a gentle tone.

Melinda knew this tone. This was the tone he used with his patients as he was asking them pointed questions to steer them toward a specific truth. He kept the pretense of phrasing it as a question out of the mix, but that was it. “I know it,” She said.

“Okay,” Andrew rolled his eyes and sighed. He put his container and chopsticks down, wiped his mouth with a wadded napkin and tossed it to the table. “I can’t want to hear this. Tell me, Mel, how do you know that?” He folded his hands behind his head and arched his eyebrows at her in challenge.

Melinda felt the stab of betrayal in her chest at the confrontational way he was speaking to her. She wondered if he realized that this was hard for her. No one had been able to read her before like Andrew. He had to know that this wasn’t what she wanted for them but that she was willing to let him go rather than be the one who made him unhappy for the rest of his life, right? She had told him everything about what she remembered of the situation. How did he not understand that she needed to finish it. She needed to find the baby, whether it was finding Daisy’s body or finding her alive somewhere. There would be no true closer for her until that happened. 

“This was a bad idea,” Melinda shook her head. She stood up from her seat and began closing the Chinese food takeout containers. Suddenly, she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She didn’t want to sit here and be judged and laughed at for her actions. She was an adult. She had known she was breaking rules when she had made the visit, but she had needed to do it. She needed to know. She wasn’t sorry for it even though she had been suspended. She had no idea what she would have done if she had been fired, but she didn’t have to know that since she hadn’t been. Most importantly, she didn’t have to explain herself to Andrew while he mocked her in retaliation for Melinda having called an end to their marriage. 

“Were we ever a good idea for you?” Andrew asked quietly as he watched her clean up. She didn’t answer him, merely continued her cleanup tasks without looking his way again or speaking until he rose and left the room. Eventually, she heard the truck in the driveway and knew he was gone.

Andrew’s question stung Melinda for days after he left. 

\--

_ It makes a sound like thunder _

_ It makes me feel like rain  _

_ And like a fool who will never see the truth  _

_ I keep thinking something’s gonna change _

_ But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much _

_ And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart you can’t trust  _

_ There’s a reason why people don’t don’t stay where there are  _

_ Baby sometimes love just ain’t enough _

\--

The one-year anniversary of the accident came upon Melinda faster than she had anticipated. She wasn’t on the schedule for that day and, try as she might to switch shifts so that she would have something to do to focus on, to keep her mind busy and off of thinking, no one needed a shift change. It figured. She had picked up a lot of overtime hours picking up shifts people didn’t want. Work kept her busy. When she wasn’t working, she worked around the house. Melinda couldn’t afford the house on her own, though. That had been problematic as it meant she had to search for a roommate. She wound up with two after she had done some renovation work in the basement to put in a bedroom and another bathroom. 

It had taken two months to find the first of the roommates, Jean, a postgraduate student who was working on her Phd in psychology (Melinda couldn’t seem to escape those, it seemed), who worked, for the time being, as a bartender on the weekends. She rented what had formerly been the second bedroom Melinda and Andrew once planned to turn into a nursery and then later had simply turned into a so-called ‘guest room.’ She was a nice enough woman, an unsuspecting redhead who was rather adept at reading people, even Melinda when she forced her impassive facade into place, but smart enough to know when she shouldn’t pry into the nitty gritty details of Melinda’s mood. She was also very fond of cooking her own meals. Melinda made out on the deal since she typically made enough for two, and then eventually for three once Melinda finished the downstairs quarters and they had interviewed for a third roommate. 

Both Melinda and Jean agreed Bruce would make for a good roommate. It didn’t bother either of them that he was a man, he had his own living space downstairs. The kitchen, dining room, living room, pantry, laundry/mud room and the backyard would be their common spaces, not the bathroom. Bruce was a science professor at one of the big-named universities in the city. He tended to always have books and scraps of paper with formulas indecipherable to Melinda tucked into pages of his text and notebooks, popping from the corners of his pockets or occasionally errantly stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He was mild mannered and sweet, if nervous and a bit on the stammer-y side. They frequently had to drag him away from off-hours work to make him eat whenever he forgot that food was a thing. 

Melinda had run background checks on both of them, of course, to make sure she didn’t have any secret criminals moving in with her. Both of them were clean so far as she could find. Despite the way Melinda distanced herself, they became what she considered friends. They shared the bills. They shared the space. They kept Melinda from sinking too far into herself without forcing her to talk about things she couldn’t verbalize. They got along well with the Coulsons and didn’t mind when Bobbi came running in before one of her parents, demanding hugs and invading their space to ask them what they were doing or any other manner of ‘Why?’ strings of questions. Sometimes they even babysat when Audrey’s niece, Maria couldn’t. 

Despite things falling into place, even if they weren’t quite the right place she wanted the pieces to fall, the anniversary came up on her before she was properly prepared for it. Melinda had off. Jean was at class. Bruce was on campus working late on some class’ experiment project. The Coulsons had taken a trip into the city likely for some holiday shopping. 

Jiaying had no one to claim her body. Because of this she had no grave. She had been cremated and, eventually, when her parents had contact information had been found through the immigration office and had been contacted, her ashes had been sent to her family. Melinda had found no traces of Daisy’s death. She had also found no leads to signal that she was alive. The trail had been cold for quite some time but Melinda couldn’t let it go. She took a ride first to the closest florist in town for a bouquet of daisies, white and yellow; bright, yet somber for Melinda. She drove, then, further into the suburbs, out toward the large lake before the mountains. It was much colder this year than it had been last year, but the there was no snow on the ground and the water wasn’t cold enough to be frozen over. 

For a long time, Melinda sat on a boulder by the water’s edge, thinking about all that had happened over the last year. She had lost a lot. She was still here. She was still alive, but was she the person she wanted to be? Had she changed so much that she was past the point of being able to go back to who she was? She knew there would always be this lingering part of her that simply refused to revert, but was it possible, at all, to get back to some resemblance of the former Melinda May? Garner. She should have thought, ‘Melinda Garner.’ But she hadn’t. She thought of her maiden name. 

Melinda pulled the bouquet into pieces, making her mental apologies to Jiaying for her failure to protect her, her failure to keep the promise she had made to the dying woman. She floated them two by two into the water. 

\--

_ And there’s not way home _

_ When it’s late at night and you’re all alone.  _

_ Are there things that you wanted to say?  _

_ And do you feel be beside you in your bed,  _

_ There beside you where I used to lay?  _

\--

Two hours later, she found herself ringing Andrew’s doorbell and pounding her fist on the door. She knew he was home. His car was in the driveway and she had seen the light of the television through the living room’s window. She had no idea how she had ended up here. She hadn’t been consciously thinking about it when she had rushed to her car and climbed in. Now there were tears on her cheeks and a desperate need to see her ex-husband pulling at her heart. Whatever had come over her, it was sudden and intense. 

When the door swung open, as soon as Melinda saw Andrew’s familiar face, she had reached for the sides of it and pulled him down, leaning up on her toes at the same time, she brought their mouths together for an intense kiss, cutting Andrew off midway through his startled question of her name. It wasn’t until Melinda’s lungs burned that she let Andrew break the kiss. He was stunned, blinking at her with his mouth hanging agape. 

“I know I shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry, it’s just that I-,” Melinda’s words cut off when she heard another female voice calling out from the living room, asking Andrew who was at the door. 

Andrew didn’t answer. Melinda took a step back. “Melinda,” He said her name softly, lifting a hand to reach for her, but Melinda backed up. She shook her head. This was not a scenario she had banked on. Then again, she hadn’t thought of running into his arms after beating on his door either, not often anyway. 

“I shouldn’t have…” Melinda cleared her throat. After another moment, her impassive facade was back in place, cutoff, distant - alone. “I’m sorry,” She managed to mutter as she turned and rushed from the porch back to her car. She didn’t hear it in her hasty escape, but Andrew called after her. She ignored his calls, put the car in drive, checked over her shoulder and pulled into the street. She had three voicemail messages on the machine from him when she returned home, Jean alerted her to them without asking her what had happened while Melinda mentally berated herself for being weak and foolish. It was foolish to think he hadn’t or wouldn’t move on from her. She had set him free so that he could restart his life the way he wanted to. Melinda didn’t know why she hadn’t considered that this meant he would move on, however quickly. 

Melinda erased the messages without listening to them. 

\--

_ And there’s a danger in loving somebody too much, _

_ And it’s sad when you know it’s your heart they can’t touch  _

_ There’s a reason why people don’t stay who they are. _

_ Baby sometimes love, just ain’t enough. _

_ Baby, sometimes love _

_ It just ain’t enough _  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Song credit: Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough - Patty Smyth ft. Don Henley  
> \------------------------  
> This series was inspired by a book I read a number of years ago, The Words of Every Song by Liz Moore. It had multiple episodes contained within it and each episode was tied somehow to the music industry and it was beautifully woven together.
> 
> While this is not an AU based around the music industry, it is definitely completely AU and will cover more than just the AOS corner of Marvel's deep well of available characters to toy with. This world will have no superheroes/powers, etc.
> 
> Rather than making this a multichapter story, I'm making it into a series so that each 'episode' (if you will) can be its own self contained part of the story. Each one will revolve around a particular aspect of the characters involved's lives and will be titled after and tie into whatever song is relevant to that particular piece. Lengths of each chapter will vary (and can/may do so) greatly, so some, may be short snippets and others could be 40k+ words like some of the UWGT chapters!
> 
> We've progressed into the beginning of the 90's as I fiddle with laying the groundwork for world building. I’m doing my best to only use songs that came out during or before the year each piece is written in as we go. Some characters will have age changes/adjustments since, again, AU. I will likely add a soundtrack playlist as well once a handful of pieces are posted and it's off and running (and I figure out how to do that?).
> 
> If you have any thoughts, song suggestions, questions, etc please always feel free to drop me a line, I love hearing from you guys! <3 :o)  
> (just gonna paste this into each of the episodes for now as a precautionary measure of explanation!)


End file.
